Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

From Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister harmóniák

One of the more disappointing bits of Los Angeles arts news last week was that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is ending its film program, which has screened work of most stripes at the Bing Theater on LACMA’s campus for nearly 40 years. Frankly, it’s an embarrassment to the organization and the county that in the geographical heart of the film industry our most prominent museum can’t find a way to keep a film department and program alive. Michael Galvan, LACMA’s director, notes that the program has been losing audience and money for years and is reportedly shutting the department down while the museum comes up with some kind of new film strategy. And, while I understand that times are tough for arts organizations everywhere, I can’t help but agree with Kenneth Turan – why does the program have to be shut down while things are being “rethought.” I find it hard to believe that the decline of the program is something so recent that it’s just occurred to everyone that the program needs to move in some sort of unspecified but yet to be imagined new direction.

From Jacques Rivette’s Celine et Julie vont en Bateau

Of course, I guess I’m as much to blame as anyone. I know I haven’t attended a movie screening at LACMA in years. Honestly, I stopped mostly because the whole scene had gotten so annoying. The audiences were particularly unruly with lots of talking and unnecessary noise that only enraged other patrons who would then accost the talkers making the whole show even worse. I recall there was a particular group of rather elderly folk that would come every weekend and sit in the back row and make noise like the Bing Theater was their private living room. It just got to be too arduous to take. Even in a half-empty theater, there was nowhere to sit to get away from all of the noise sometimes.

From Jacques Tati’s Playtime

Of course, the quality had gone down as well in recent years. As recently as the late 90s, LACMA would frequently fund and host newly restored and rare prints of foreign films, forgotten classics and other fare not readily available even in a DVD saturated world. Even following the death of its long-time director Ron Haver in 1993, the program was robust and exciting well into the late 90s and early 2000s. It compared favorably to the programming at outfits like the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the American Cinematheque. But the Bing Theater and the movies I saw there in the mid-90s will always be near and dear to my heart. Over half of my all time favorite movies came to me through LACMA. Jacques Rivette’s Celine et Julie vont en Bateau, Bela Tarr’s Werckmeister harmóniák and Jacques Tati’s Playtime were only a few of the evenings that changed the way I thought about film if not about art and perhaps life as well. (Not to mention Merchant of the Four Seasons and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) But I suppose we all lose places like that as we get older, so apparently it’s my turn now. Still, something has been lost and it’s very, very sad that our biggest public art institution will apparently have nothing to say about film after November.

Labels: LACMA

Werner Tübke, detail from "Reminiscences of Schulze III, JD," 1965
Photo: Museum Associates/LACMA 2008

Not been to LACMA in awhile? Now would be a great time to go. (And sign up for a membership while you're at it since it's one of the best museums in the country, and, times being what they are, they could use your support and are one of the most inexpensive entertainments around.) On Saturday, though battling a bit of a head cold, I saw two excellent current exhibitions, including the recently opened “Art of two Germanys/Cold War Culture.” Perhaps the most surprising thing initially about the show was the exhibition space itself. Occupying the second floor of the Broad Contemporary Art wing of the museum (BCAM), “Art of two Germanys” feels immense. making the space seem much larger than it did in my previous visit to BCAM with Broad's own collection on display. Now the second floor is filled with hundreds of paintings, sculptures, photography and a significant amount of video and filmed material from both East and West Germany from 1945 through the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

The names and movements one might expect from this period are all represented – Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Martin Kippenberger, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Dieter Roth, AR Penck, Jörg Immendorff and even Achim Freyer. But this show is not primarily about any individuals or the techniques they exemplify. This is about art imitating life and the specific ways work produced in East and West Germany reflected post-WWII culture and political developments in two divergent, but closely related societies. The works are arranged chronologically and often explicitly refer to various historical events or persons. But this is no dry history lesson either. There are numerous examples as well of how German art integrated not only across the iron curtain, but also within the larger history of art in the latter 20th century. There's a real excitement and direction in the show and the narrative implicit in the timeline never overwhelms the broader picture. There are too many favorites of mine to mention, so go see it for yourself.

from Francis Alÿs, Fabiola
Photo: Museum Associates/LACMA 2008

Before you leave the museum, however, be sure not to miss a single room installation on the third floor of the Ahmanson building from Francis Alÿs entitled “Fabiola”. Alÿs has arranged perhaps the ultimate post-modern exhibit by displaying a collection of over three hundred amateur and semi-professional paintings and other objects copying the image of St. Fabiola. The images are arranged in one room and hung closely together emphasizing the deeply embedded variety in these seemingly endless copies on an original. Here’s the twist, the original, a 19th century paining by Jean-Jacques Henner, was lost prior to the advent of photography. Since no one knows exactly what the original looks like, the copies exist only as repetitions of other older copies. The many faces of the saint that also appear in needlepoint and wood, say much about the nature of iconography, identity and faith. It has a very big impact, so hurry to see it before the exhibit closes on March 29.

Labels: LACMA